We propose a simple model where the innovation rate of a technological domain depends on the innovation rate of the technological domains it relies on. Using data on US patents from 1836 to 2017, we make out-of-sample predictions and find that the predictability of innovation rates can be boosted substantially when network effects are taken into account. In the case where a technology$'$s neighborhood future innovation rates are known, the average predictability gain is 28$\%$ compared to simpler time series model which do not incorporate network effects. Even when nothing is known about the future, we find positive average predictability gains of 20$\%$. The results have important policy implications, suggesting that the effective support of a given technology must take into account the technological ecosystem surrounding the targeted technology.
This paper contributes to the literature on the impact of Big Science Centres on technological innovation. We exploit a unique dataset with information on CERN's procurement orders to study the collaborative innovation process between CERN and its industrial partners. After a qualitative discussion of case studies, survival and count data models are estimated; the impact of CERN procurement on suppliers' innovation is captured by the number of patent applications. The fact that firms in our sample received their first order over a long time span (1995-2008) delivers a natural partition of indu…
We define a novel quantitative strategy inspired by the ecological notion of nestedness to single out the scale at which innovation complexity emerges from the aggregation of specialized building blocks. Our analysis not only suggests that the innovation space can be interpreted as a natural system in which advantageous capabilities are selected by evolutionary pressure, but also that the emerging structure of capabilities is not independent of the scale of observation at which they are observed. Expanding on this insight allows us to understand whether the capabilities characterizing the inno…
We study whether specific combinations of technological advancements can signal the presence of local capabilities allowing for a given industrial production. To this end, we generate a multi-layer network using country-level patent and trade data, and perform a motif-based analysis on this network using a statistical validation approach derived from maximum entropy arguments. We show that in many cases the signal far exceeds the noise, providing robust evidence of synergies between different technologies that can lead to a competitive advantage in specific markets. Our results can be highly u…
It has been suggested that innovations occur mainly by combination: the more inventions accumulate, the higher the probability that new inventions are obtained from previous designs. Additionally, it has been conjectured that the combinatorial nature of innovations naturally leads to a singularity: at some finite time, the number of innovations should diverge. Although these ideas are certainly appealing, no general models have been yet developed to test the conditions under which combinatorial technology should become explosive. Here we present a generalised model of technological evolution t…
Exploring the conditions for sustainability with open-ended innovation
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)（阿卜杜斯·萨拉姆国际理论物理中心）；The Laboratory for Quantitative Sustainability（定量可持续发展实验室）；Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile（智利天主教 Pontificia 大学）；Universidad de La Habana（哈瓦那大学）；Santa Fe Institute（圣塔菲研究所）；Universidad de Chile（智利大学）；CNRS（法国国家科学研究中心）
Determining how scientific achievements influence the subsequent process of knowledge creation is a fundamental step in order to build a unified ecosystem for studying the dynamics of innovation and competitiveness. Relying separately on data about scientific production on one side, through bibliometric indicators, and about technological advancements on the other side, through patents statistics, gives only a limited insight on the key interplay between science and technology which, as a matter of fact, move forward together within the innovation space. In this paper, using citation data of b…
Quantifying the Dynamics of Innovation Abandonment Across Scientific, Technological, Commercial, and Pharmacological Domains
Center for Science of Science and Innovation（科学科学与创新研究中心）；Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)（西北大学复杂系统研究所）；Kellogg School of Management（凯洛格管理学院）；Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick（华威大学跨学科方法中心）；Department of Physics, University of Miami（迈阿密大学物理系）；Telenor Research and Development（泰伦诺研发部）
Over the years, the growing availability of extensive datasets about registered patents allowed researchers to better understand technological innovation drivers. In this work, we investigate how the technological contents of patents characterise the development of metropolitan areas and how innovation is related to GDP per capita. Exploiting worldwide data from 1980 to 2014, and through network-based techniques that only use information about patents, we identify coherent distinguished groups of metropolitan areas, either clustered in the same geographical area or similar from an economic poi…
We show that the space in which scientific, technological and economic developments interplay with each other can be mathematically shaped using pioneering multilayer network and complexity techniques. We build the tri-layered network of human activities (scientific production, patenting, and industrial production) and study the interactions among them, also taking into account the possible time delays. Within this construction we can identify which capabilities and prerequisites are needed to be competitive in a given activity, and even measure how much time is needed to transform, for instan…
We reconstruct the innovation dynamics of about two hundred thousand companies by following their patenting activity for about ten years. We define the technological portfolios of these companies as the set of the technological sectors present in the patents they submit. By assuming that companies move more frequently towards related sectors, we leverage on their past activity to build network-based and machine learning algorithms to forecast the future submission of patents in new sectors. We compare different evaluation metrics and prediction methodologies, showing that tree-based machine le…
Schumpeter's (1939) distinction between changes in the form of the production function corresponding to innovation, and shifts along the production function corresponding to factor substitution, does not preclude that the underlying dynamics interact. In an evolutionarily complex system, such interactions are expected: they lead to non-linear terms in the model, and therefore to stabilization and self-organization in addition to selection and variation. Relatively simple simulations enable us to specify various concepts used in 'evolutionary economics' in terms of non-linear dynamics. While a …
"In the next century, planet earth will don an electronic skin. It will use the Internet as a scaffold to support and transmit its sensations. This skin is already being stitched together. It consists of millions of embedded electronic measuring devices: thermostats, pressure gauges, pollution detectors, cameras, microphones, glucose sensors, EKGs, electroencephalographs. These will probe and monitor cities and endangered species, the atmosphere, our ships, highways and fleets of trucks, our conversations, our bodies--even our dreams ....What will the earth's new skin permit us to feel? How wi…
The web of relations linking technological innovation can be fairly described in terms of patent citations. The resulting patent citation network provides a picture of the large-scale organization of innovations and its time evolution. Here we study the patterns of change of patents registered by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). We show that the scaling behavior exhibited by this network is consistent with a preferential attachment mechanism together with a Weibull-shaped aging term. Such attachment kernel is shared by scientific citation networks, thus indicating an universal type …
University of Pisa（比萨大学）；IMT School for Advanced Studies（IMT高等研究院）；Center for Study and Research ‘Enrico Fermi’ (CREF)（恩里科·费米研究中心）；Institute for Applied Computing ‘Mauro Picone’ (IAC-CNR)（毛罗·皮科内应用计算研究所）；INdAM-GNAMPA Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica ‘Francesco Severi’（弗朗切斯科·塞韦里国家高等数学研究所）；Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Leiden（莱顿大学洛伦兹理论物理研究所）；Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge（剑桥大学商业研究中心）
The purpose of this study is to investigate the structure and evolution of knowledge spillovers across technological domains. Specifically, dynamic patterns of knowledge flow among 29 technological domains, measured by patent citations for eight distinct periods, are identified and link prediction is tested for capability for forecasting the evolution in these cross-domain patent networks. The overall success of the predictions using the Katz metric implies that there is a tendency to generate increased knowledge flows mostly within the set of previously linked technological domains. This stud…
This article derives prognostic expressions for the evolution of globally aggregated economic wealth, productivity, inflation, technological change, innovation and growth. The approach is to treat civilization as an open, non-equilibrium thermodynamic system that dissipates energy and diffuses matter in order to sustain existing circulations and to further its material growth. Appealing to a prior result that established a fixed relationship between a very general representation of global economic wealth and rates of global primary energy consumption, physically derived expressions for economi…
Based on a recent model of paradigm shifts by Bornholdt et al., we studied mean-field opinion dynamics in an infinite population where an infinite number of ideas compete simultaneously with their values publicly known. We found that a highly innovative society is not characterized by heavy concentration in highly valued ideas: Rather, ideas are more broadly distributed in a more innovative society with faster progress, provided that the rate of adoption is constant, which suggests a positive correlation between innovation and technological disparity. Furthermore, the distribution is generally…
Recent works in the information science literature have presented cases of using patent databases and patent classification information to construct network maps of technology fields, which aim to aid in competitive intelligence analysis and innovation decision making. Constructing such a patent network requires a proper measure of the distance between different classes of patents in the patent classification systems. Despite the existence of various distance measures in the literature, it is unclear how to consistently assess and compare them, and which ones to select for constructing patent …
In this paper we develop a theory to describe innovation processes in a network of interacting units. We introduce a stochastic picture that allows for the clarification of the role of fluctuations for the survival of innovations in such a non-linear system. We refer to the theory of complex networks and introduce the notion of sensitive networks. Sensitive networks are networks in which the introduction or the removal of a node/vertex dramatically changes the dynamic structure of the system. As an application we consider interaction networks of firms and technologies and describe technologica…
Generating scientific and technological knowledge and converting them into innovations which are of added value to society are key instruments for a society economic growth and development. As outstanding as these capabilities are for other regions in the world, Africa science, innovation, education and research infrastructure, particularly in fundamental and applied physics, have over the years been under valued and under resourced. To efficiently address the scientific and technological gaps with the rest of the world, Africa stance needs radical overhaul. With the big ambition to drive a co…
The interaction among the three sub-dynamics of economic exchange, technological innovation, and institutional control can be captured with a generalized Triple Helix model. We propose to use the information contained in the configuration among the three sub-dynamics as an indicator of the synergy in a configuration. This measure indicates the reduction of the uncertainty which prevails at the level of an innovation system. On the basis of data at the district level in Germany, the conclusions of a previous study about the Netherlands are tested: medium-tech manufacturing is the main driver of…
At the heart of technology transitions lie complex processes of social and industrial dynamics. The quantitative study of sustainability transitions requires modelling work, which necessitates a theory of technology substitution. Many, if not most, contemporary modelling approaches for future technology pathways overlook most aspects of transitions theory, for instance dimensions of heterogenous investor choices, dynamic rates of diffusion and the profile of transitions. A significant body of literature however exists that demonstrates how transitions follow S-shaped diffusion curves or Lotka-…
Using information theory and data for all (0.5 million) Norwegian firms, the national and regional innovation systems are decomposed into three subdynamics: (i) economic wealth generation, (ii) technological novelty production, and (iii) government interventions and administrative control. The mutual information in three dimensions can then be used as an indicator of potential synergy, that is, reduction of uncertainty. We aggregate the data at the NUTS3 level for 19 counties, the NUTS2 level for seven regions, and the single NUTS1 level for the nation. Measured as in-between group reduction o…
Our world is strongly driven by technological developments that continuously create new markets and shape individual taste and choice. The scale of dissemination of the most recent technological breakthroughs and the capability of creating them is what divides wealthy societies from poor ones. The increasing sophistication of these developments make it harder and harder for developing countries to actively contribute to these breakthroughs as well as to acquire the right to benefit from them through the exchange of products obtained through low-tech agriculture, industry and services. Thus, as…
In this article we explore the analytical and policy implications of widening the governance of nanomaterials from the focus on risk regulation to a broader focus on the governance of innovation. To do this, we have analysed the impact of industrial activities on nanotechnology governance, while previous studies have concentrated on risk appraisal, public perceptions, public engagement, regulatory frameworks and related policies. We argue that the specific characteristics of the industrial dynamics of nanomaterials - flexibility in applications and distributed innovation - have important impli…
